One Championship: Eddie Alvarez’s eye ‘exploded from the inside’ – punch ‘instantly blinded me’, says former UFC champion
- Former UFC champion’s eyelids ‘split in half’ by Timofey Nastyukhin in Tokyo
- Alvarez ‘sincerely confused in my inability to pull the trigger and my hesitancy’ on debut
Warning: this story contains images of a graphic nature
Eddie Alvarez went down from punches to the head by Timofey Nastyukhin. But it was a vicious left from the Russian knockout artist that split his eyelids in half.
“The punch that hit me instantly blinded me and split both eyelids in half. It felt like my eye exploded from the inside and the pain was instant,” Alvarez wrote on Instagram. “From an outsider watching myself I should have expected the result considering my actions. You have to punch, kick, takedown and pressure to win a fight, I waited. I simply waited too long for the correct timing and opening that never came.”
The “Underground King” was a star capture for Singapore-based MMA company One, and announced his intentions to chase down the lightweight title.